Love Letters
by fadewithfury
Summary: The Doctor sends letters to Rose via a tiny wormhole that connects their pockets. Post Doomsday.


This was inspired by thebadddestwolf's (of Tumblr) ficlet "A Better Ending." Thanks to Spookyknight and Callistawolf for the beta.

* * *

Rose, are you there? This is the Doctor. I'm sure that much is obvious, though. Who else would be talking to you through your pocket?

Rose, please respond when you get this message by sliding your note into the wormhole in your pocket like we did on Findeis III. It's in the right corner of your left pocket.

I haven't heard from you yet. I remember that you wore those trousers at Canary Wharf. Rose, please get this message. (Rest of the message is scribbled over).

My messages are disappearing, so I have to assume they're getting through. Or, they're floating in the void, which I suppose is better than if they were to fall into the wrong hands. I certainly hope not. I wouldn't want any nefarious being going after you through your trousers. It might also be possible that the wormhole has shifted its trajectory. I'm going to run a few tests.

Just checking in to see if you've found my messages yet. The tests are still running.

According to my tests, the probability that the other end of the wormhole comes out in your pocket is very high. So, I'll just assume you haven't worn those trousers in a while, or forgot that I made your pocket a dimensional pocket. I bet you'll laugh when you reach in your pocket and pull out piles of letters.

I hope you're not upset with me or ignoring me. I've tried everything I can to get back to you, omitting any option that has a high chance of destroying reality. Not that reality is very exciting without you.

I'll keep writing to you in hopes that you'll find these messages eventually. I'm travelling with a woman called Martha Jones now. I think you'd like her. She's clever and, well, I think she fancies me. We encountered these witches. Carrionites, actually. One of them said your name in a spell. They thought that naming you would be a curse, but you are my strength. (End of message scribbled over).

Rose, you do remember Findeis III, don't you? The civilization that spanned across twelve moons orbiting a gas giant? We had to split up and I linked our dimensional pockets with the wormhole. So we could talk to each other. Please remember, Rose. It's so–(message scribbled over). The moon nations are at peace now thanks to you. Please remember.

Rose! I just received your message! Though, I'm a bit confused. A receipt for a chip shop with a number written on the back hardly tells me how you're doing. Unless you're using some form of code. Whose number is that, by the way? Just curious. I'll hold on to it for you.

Rose, are you unable to respond? Is that it? Are you missing your trousers–the black ones? Do you remember how our pockets used to exchange their contents accidentally? That one time I reached in my coat pocket for a ball of Tredelis moth silk twine and ended up pulling out a tampon? And you found my temporal spectrometer in yours. I still have that tampon. I'm not sure what to do with it. I guess I forgot to give it back to you. I miss you, Rose.

We went to New York City, Rose! 1930s. You'd have loved it. Well, except for the Great Depression and the Daleks. I keep forgetting to tell Martha that we have a wardrobe on the TARDIS. It's probably very careless of me. I'd imagine you would say so. Then you'd help her pick out something lovely to wear. I'm rubbish at that.

Rose, you must be losing things in your pockets. I just found an earring in my coat pocket and I know it's not mine. I'd never wear sapphire chandeliers. Too fancy. I bet you looked beautiful in them, though.

I've kept your room accessible on the TARDIS. Not that I spend a lot of time in there laying in the bed and sorting through the trinkets you collected on our travels. I've folded up your clothing. It was a bit of a mess.

I'm sorry that I haven't been able to write to you in a long time. I hid as a human in the early nineteen hundreds on Earth, and I wasn't myself. I dreamt of you every night. I even drew a picture of you. I was able to experience what it would be like to be a human with a normal, quick life laid out before me. Marriage and children. Picking curtains and paying mortgage. The one adventure I can never have. When I was myself again, I imagined living a life like that with you. I hope that isn't too forward. I'm afraid I've mucked things up with Martha again. She's not happy about the whole thing. Claims I need to be more sensitive. You'd say less rude. Either way, I'm starting to think I'm just talking to myself. I miss you terribly.

Oh, I seem to have lost my red-spectrum oscillating spanner. Has it turned up in your pocket, perhaps? It's the only one left in the universe and without it, I can't calibrate the red-spectrum oscillator. The TARDIS interior would look dreadful if she ever needed to repair herself and I couldn't make adjustments.

Got to see Jack recently. He asked about you. I told him you were safe, and for the first time I started to worry that you might not be. You're resourceful and brave, so I'm sure you can take care of anything that might intend to harm you. Jack was very happy that you're all right. How is Mickey? And your mother?

I found a fiver in my pocket this time. Definitely from your universe. You have to notice that things keep going missing. Rose, please. I need to hear from you.

One year, five months, ten days, three hours, twenty-one minutes and sixteen seconds have passed since I last wrote to you. A lot of things have happened; most not very good. Martha Jones said goodbye to me today, so I'm travelling alone. I can hear you now. Don't worry, my dear Rose. I have the TARDIS. I'll be all right.

I'm travelling with Donna again. I don't think I told you about her before. She appeared on my ship soon after our transmission cut off. You had just told me that you loved me and I can hear your voice saying it just as clearly. I hear your tears and see your face marred by sorrow. The whole bit plays over and over in my mind. And I had to waste time being a prat when I could have said that I love you, too. If you don't get any of my messages, I hope you get this one. By the way, I also hope you've found that spanner. I have a feeling I'm going to need it.

Donna and I went to Pompeii. I don't really want to talk about that. Remember when we went to Rome? I still have the sculpture of you. Donna saw it in the observatory and asked me about it. I told her it was something I sculpted of you and she said I was worse than a fourteen year old human girl with posters of handsome musicians on her wall. I didn't get why that would insult me, but it seems like an odd ritual. She then asked me if you were cold when you were modeling for it. I said I did it from memory. That made her laugh pretty hard, and I decided to move it back to my room where I had it before.

Rose, I was thinking about your name today. Rose Marion Tyler. It's beautiful in Gallifreyan. I met someone who claimed to be from my future. She knew my name. Sometimes I want to know my future, sometimes I don't. This was one of those latter times.

The feeling of having an entity systematically single you out as the cleverest person in the room and then gradually possess you without you even realizing it, to the point that they can speak your thoughts before you even think them, is truly one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I've encountered horrors you wouldn't even imagine, but that… it nearly broke me, Rose. I could've used one of your pedicures after that.

I found a list in my pocket look like transdimensional coordinates. I can't determine a pattern, but I'm very concerned. This is your handwriting.

I'm starting to feel a bit daft writing these messages. Here I am, an ancient, massively intelligent Time Lord writing love letters to the void. I should stop. You're gone and I need to accept it. Just like everything else I hold dear. It all fades away in the end and all that's left is me.

* * *

The Doctor rushes outside after Donna speaks the words. The words are everywhere; on all signs. On every poster and advertisement. On his TARDIS. He reaches into his pocket, feeling something peculiar. He pulls out a slip of paper. His hands shake with anticipation as he unrolls the tiny scroll and reads the message out loud.

"Bad Wolf"

* * *

Rose sorts through old items and clothing on the morning of another jump across dimensions. She's nervous about coming up empty yet again, and the idle task gives her something else to focus on. Part of her wants to just chuck it all in the bin, because–what if she finds him this time? She asks herself this every single jump, and by now she has lost count of how many times she has been disappointed. But it won't stop her. It never will, because she's Rose Tyler, and he's the Doctor, and the universe needs him as much as she does.

More stars have gone out. Each one that vanishes renews her determination. She throws an old shirt to the trash pile after finding it too stained with blood and dirt from some long-forgotten Torchwood mission. She will find him.

But there's an acute possibility that the device will stop working again. She shakes her head free of that thought. Because there's also a possibility that if it does work, she wouldn't be coming back. She wanted to save people the trouble of sorting through her belongings once she's gone. Her hands work almost of their own accord as her mind drifts to how she might react upon seeing him again. What if he has a new face? What if that's why she couldn't find him? No. She shakes the thought from her mind as she lifts the black trousers that, for a time, were one of her few garments in this universe. They're a couple sizes too large now, and worn from overuse. She nearly tosses them on the donate pile when she remembers to check the pockets.

All of the pockets turn up empty, except as she dips her hand into the last pocket, the left one, something sharp nicks her finger and she withdraws it with a pained gasp. A tiny bead of blood blooms on the tip of her finger and she sucks at it before trying again, this time more carefully.

Her hand slides in much further than she expected, and fingertips brush against something cold, metal and rather large. She wraps her hand around the object and pulls it out. And that's when it dawns on her. How could she have forgotten? The dimensional pocket! And resting in her hand was some sort of tool that no doubt belonged to the Doctor. She turns it over in her hands, admiring the alien technology. Her thoughts swell with memories of the Doctor burrowed halfway under the TARDIS console and singing merrily, the melody broken here and there by sparks and swears.

Rose shoves her hand into the pocket again, and this time she withdraws a handful of tiny scrolls. She searches again, finding a few more, and when she's certain she has them all, she lays them on the floor in front of her. She doesn't remember being given these scrolls in the past, or the alien tool for that matter. And then she remembers the wormhole. How could she forget something so profoundly important as a wormhole in her pocket? She wants to vomit from the force of the realization. Grief has a way of sewing patches of darkness over things that might open wounds, but this? They had only used it for one trip, and never needed it again after that. Being separated forever was never, ever on her mind.

She glides her hands over the scrolls to separate them into a neat row and bites her bottom lip. What if the Doctor had been trying to reach out to her? Her heart drops out of her chest as she reaches for one of them, fingers trembling. She unrolls the slip of paper to reveal that they are covered in Gallifreyan writing. Tears spring to her eyes at the sight of the intricate, connecting circles. She recognizes it as the Doctor's penmanship from the sticky notes he would tack on the console monitor. He had been writing to her all this time.

She opens each scroll until she's surrounded by them. The Doctor's language stares up at her, completely indecipherable in blue or black ink. Except the one scroll written in green. Tears fall onto her lap as she blinks them away. And then she breaks. She curls over herself and cries, hard, for the first time in years.

Once her tears had finally slowed to a stop, she dove into her next task without hesitation. She found scissors, thread and a needle, and cut the pocket out of her trousers and sewed it into the lining of her leather jacket. With a deep breath, she rips a slip of scrap paper from a nearby empty journal and scrawls a message to her Doctor.

_I'm trying to find my way back to you._

She doesn't know that the words change to _Bad Wolf_ when they reach him.

She slips it into the newly-attached pocket and feels it float out of her fingertips. "Please find him," she whispers as she bundles up the Doctor's messages and puts them in her pocket.

That night, Rose waits for the dimension cannon to calibrate for her next journey. She shoulders her gun and looks up at the nearly starless sky. She can feel the pull in her belly before the cannon even fires, and before she can blink, she scatters into particles and light.

* * *

Rose and the Doctor stay at an old hotel on their way back to London from Bad Wolf Bay. She's tired and yet volatile, with so many thoughts to sort through and not enough energy to even know where to start. The Doctor gives her space, but she doesn't want it. She goes to him and takes his hand and stares down at their entwined fingers.

"I love you, too," she says, and it's incredible how utterly right the words feel as they fall from her lips, even after all this time.

The Doctor smiles. "I know." He tugs her closer to him and rests his hands on her waist.

"I want to show you something," she says, and reaches into her pocket. She didn't have time to bring it up before and feels a stab of regret that the other him went on without ever knowing. She suddenly feels shy as she withdraws the bundle of scrolls. "I found these recently…"

"Oh, dear," he says and rubs the back of his head.

"I didn't know about them until just before my last jump. I promise I would have responded to every single word if I had," she said. "But, there's just one problem."

The Doctor pales a little. "Oh?"

Rose places a scroll in his hand. "Take a look."

The Doctor unrolls the scroll and slaps his forehead, "Bloody hell! I can't believe I'd do that!" He reaches for another after tossing the first on the bed nearby only to find the same circular Gallifreyan filling the little page. "Or, I can't believe the TARDIS would." He blushes as he stops for a moment to read the contents.

"What is it?"

"Er… let's just say I missed you?"

Rose smiles. "Oh, come on. You have to read them to me."

The Doctor sits on the edge of the bed with Rose and unrolls each scroll. He works for a few minutes to put them in order, and then he reads them to her out loud.

Rose watches him as he reads each one, noting how the emotions that drove them would float up to the surface and he'd rein them in to move on to the next. Every now and then he looks up at her to gauge her reaction. She experiences the whole gamut, laughter to sorrow, and reaches out for his hand as he finishes reading the last one. "I'm sorry."

"We're together now," he says.

"Yes, we are," she squeezes his hand.

The Doctor suddenly sweeps the notes aside and pulls her towards him. He kisses her clumsily at first, getting the angle wrong so she has to twist uncomfortably. They break apart to try again, and this time her lips meet his once, twice and three times until her tongue glances across his and his fingers slide into her hair. It's different than the one on the beach. It's languid and deep, and builds on itself with layers of longing and a bit of uncertainty of how far this should go right now. Her lips move to his jaw and brush against his ear, her hands moving up to knead gently at his shoulders.

"We need sleep," she says and she feels him relax under her hands. She kisses his neck just under his ear and parts from him. There's reluctance in her movements and she wonders if he can tell.

"Mmm," The Doctor nods and gathers the letters from the bed, setting them aside. He turns back the blankets and fluffs a pillow. "I'd still like to… that is," he swallows, shifting gears. "I can sleep on the, ah…" he looks around, not finding another piece of furniture suitable for sleeping.

"I'd like to also," Rose says, slipping out of her jacket. "Come here."

He joins her in the bed and draws her against him. They fall asleep to the sound of their mingled breathing and the muffled chattering of Jackie on her mobile with Pete in the adjacent room.

* * *

Rose opens the photo album where she keeps the Doctor's letters. She had mounted them with colorful scrapbook paper and the Doctor had decorated each page with stickers of green aliens in flying saucers, moons and stars, and little Valentine hearts. She smiles as she traces the circular script with her fingers and reads the translation underneath each one. It has been several months now since he read them to her the first time, and she decided long ago that she would respond to them, but could never figure out the best time to do it. Her first notion was to respond to them right away, but decided he'd probably expect something like that. She also considered waiting until a significant moment, such as the one-year anniversary of being reunited, or his birthday. His actual birthday, not his Metacrisis Day, which he calls it. Rose laughs to herself, recalling how excited he was when he realized he'd have two days dedicated to himself each year.

She thought about giving them to him one at a time. Sticking them in the handle of his mug or in his trainers, little surprises that build until he has them all, but decided that was a bit too saccharine. Instead, she settles for tonight when he's home from his temporary (he stresses) consulting gig at Torchwood and might be a bit tetchy from dealing with overeager scientists and outdated tech. She's glad she chose to work from home today as she sets to the task.

Rose spends time cutting out slips of paper and writing her responses, then rolling them up and setting them in a pile. It takes a while, as words don't come to her as easily in this form as they do on the spot. When she finishes, she puts them in a small tin canister left over from a long ago order of specialty cookies, then begins to write one more.

This one is to the other him. His Time Lord self, the one that went on with Donna and the TARDIS. She isn't sure what to say at first as the pen hovers over the paper. The most important message, she supposes, is that she hadn't ignored his letters. She doesn't want him to go on thinking she had, especially after she saw how much it meant to the Doctor, the Doctor here, to know for sure. She begins to write.

_Hello Doctor, this is Rose. I found your letters all at once and didn't have a chance to tell you before we were separated again. They mean so much to me._

She swallows, fighting tears, and then writes a little more.

_We're happy together. Thank you for everything._

Rose stares at what she'd written for a long time, unsure if she chose the right words. She would not message him again after this, and so struggled with ensuring that it sounds final without sounding cruel. Taking a deep breath, she rolls up the paper and reaches for her leather jacket. She closes her eyes as she pushes the note into the pocket, feeling it float out of her fingertips as it is carried across the void.

Time passes and he doesn't respond. Her memory of sending it is eventually buried by new memories of travelling this alternate Earth with her Doctor. Of getting lost in acres of wild places, of discovering cities that didn't exist in the other universe. Of wedding vows and babies crying and gazing at the star-filled sky on the night of their fiftieth anniversary.

There's a bit of anger, too. Some tears and hurtful words. A few squabbles over parenting tactics and withdrawal from physical intimacy when job stress was a bit too much. But all that left room for making up and rediscovery. For truly growing old together and living a life so bursting with love that she rarely thought about the Time Lord unless it was to wonder how he's getting on. Maybe he's changed faces and forgotten about her. The idea doesn't bother her as much as she thought it would long ago.

It isn't until their adult children, twins–a man and a woman now with families of their own–find their mother's old leather jacket in the attic as they sort through their belongings. The funeral was just yesterday (she was buried next to their father) and the smell of her on the scuffed leather brings tears to their eyes.

The woman searches the pockets and finds a slip of paper, but nothing else. No vast space beyond what would be reasonable for a pocket. No wormhole spanning across universes. Just the slip of paper. She unrolls it carefully. It's old and keeps curling back on itself. She finally has it open, but it's in that language her father taught her long ago. She tries her best to translate it as she reads it out loud.

"Thank _you_, Rose. I knew you would be."


End file.
